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a)
Item 4:
International Protection
There has been a proposal that the High Commissioner may wish to establish, at this Session, a Sub-Committee of the Executive Committee to study Protection in more detail. If such a Sub-Committee is established, it is desirable that HMG should be represented. Dr Paul Weis may therefore be attached to the delegation as Adviser for the consideration of this item.
The United Kingdom is party to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and to the 1967 Protocol. It has also acceded to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness which entered into force on 13 December 1975.
(i)
Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness
The question of the establishment, in accordance with the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, of a body to which persons claiming the benefit of the Convention may apply was discussed at the 29th Session of the General Assembly. Resolution 3274 (XXIX) requested the UNHCR provisionally to undertake the functions foreseen under the Convention in accordance with Article 11 when it enters into force and report to the 31st Session of the General Assembly. delegation should, as in previous years, urge other countries to ratify the Convention.
(ii) Draft Convention on Territorial Asylum
The
It remains HMG's view that the proposed Convention is superfluous on the grounds that it would achieve nothing that would not be attained by a better and more general compliance with the requirements of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, which we observe strictly. We would not wish to appear entirely negative and would not therefore oppose the possible holding of a plenipotentiary conference should there be general support for one. We had hoped that the cost of such a conference would be borne by the UN Regular Budget but the High Commissioner appealed on 2 September to those governments (except Lebanon) which are represented on his Executive Committee for voluntary contributions to cover the cost of this conference (estimated total cost US$300,000). HMG is presently considering this appeal. The philosophy of granting asylum was given formal expression in the 1951 Convention on the Status of "efugees and the Convention definition of a political refugee is now included in the Rules on Entry under the 1971 Immigration Act. In accordance with GA Resolution 3272 (XXIX) a Group of Experts met in Geneva from 28 April to 9 May last year to discuss the draft articles contained in the text of the Panel of private Experts who met in 1971. The UK representative was Dr Paul Weis. (our comments on the original draft are given in paragraph 13 of IOC (72) 139).
Although revision of some of the articles has resulted in marginal improvements we consider that the Convention is not acceptable in its present form. Our general view applies even more to the new text because by the wording of Article 9 it becomes entirely subjective. Our comments on the individual
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